Dara is a given name with a variety of meanings and origins:
- Dara is a male name in Irish which comes from dair meaning “oak” which comes from Proto-Celtic *daru deriving from a PIE root word. Dara is also an anglicized form of Dáire meaning “fruitful, fertile” and is the name of several figures in Irish mythology;
- it’s also a Scottish Gaelic word meaning “second”;
- Dara is also a Persian male name meaning “wealthy”;
- it’s also a variant of Darius, the English form of Persian Dārayavahush meaning “to possess excellence” or “he who holds firm to good” from dâraya (to possess, to hold) and vahu (good) both of which derive from a PIE source;
- in Khmer it’s a unisex name meaning “star” which derives from Sanskrit ultimately derived from PIE;
- Dara is a shortened form of Darinka or Darina, a Slavic female name which either derives from Serbo-Croatian dar meaning “gift” or it could be a diminutive form of Darija, the Croatian, Serbian, and Slovene feminine form of Darius;
- in Javanese dara means “dove, pigeon” while in Telugu it means “thread”;
- Dara is the name of a clan of Jats in India;
- Dara is also a Hebrew name meaning “pearl of wisdom” or “compassion, wisdom”. Dar is a Hebrew unisex name meaning “mother-of-pearl, nacre”.
Origin: Proto-Indo-European, Persian, Hebrew
Variants:
- Darragh (Irish)
- Daragh (Irish)
- Darach (Irish)
- Dáire (Irish)
